Posts tagged portrait

[EDIT: The offer for free drawings was made a long time ago. That offer has, understandably, expired. Thank you!]

Recently I have been creating custom drawings for friends on Facebook for free, and it’s been a wonderful experience! People are happy to see fun, creative artwork being created almost daily and it gives me tons of practice.

The first person I created artwork for was Tiara Brown, since she’s been on me for a few months to create a drawing of her. Here is the final artwork, made with Staedtler drawing pencils.

“Domonique” – graphite pencil sketch of Tiara Brown

And here is a comparison of the final portrait piece alongside the photo of Tiara I grabbed from her Facebook albums.

Comparison of final portrait sketch to the original reference photo

As a special offer to those who read my blog, I’m extending this free, custom artwork offer to you. Just leave a comment on this post with your request and I will add it to my “free artwork for friends” queue.

I will be updating this blog more faithfully, bringing you more news and artwork than before. It’s time to turn over a new leaf. It is a new year, after all. So be expecting awesomeness in the days to follow.

Have a wonderful New Year and may 2012 give you joy and success, bring prosperity to the heart and mind of all people, and not let the world be destroyed this year. Darn you, ancient Mayans!

In my little photography experience I have found that shooting with a zoom lens greatly improves my portrait shoots. The closer I get to my subject, say, using a wide angle lens, the more distortion and stretching of their face I’m going to get. Their nose is going to get enlarged, the sides of their face stretched back – in short, they’re going to look horrible, or at best, like a clown. Using a zoom or higher millimeter lens (a 55mm instead of a 18mm,) I can get a much more accurate portrait of my subject.

Below you can see the difference between lens angle of 18mm and 55mm:

18mm versus 55mm zoom for portrait photography

By being able to stand further away from the subject I create a sense of isolation and comfort for the subject, allowing them to act naturally. Getting too close to the model’s face makes them become self-conscious and stiff.

So not only does using a zoom lens, or a lens in the 55mm+ range – help tremendously to create a pleasant portrait of your subject, but it also allows your client to be able to relax and be natural. Ultimately, using the appropriate distance+zoom equals the best portraits you could imagine.

After a late-night talk via Skype, I ended up doing a photoshoot until about 4am, involving a desk lamp, incense, a knife, a lighter, and me. Finally, I threw a few of the images together and created this composite piece.